Costa Rica (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Matthew Firestone [494]
Tica Bus (in Panama City 262 2084) travels from Panama City to San José (US$25 to US$30, 15 hours) daily and crosses this border post. In David, Tracopa has one bus daily from the main terminal to San José (nine hours). In David you’ll also find frequent buses to the border at Paso Canoas (US$2, 1½ hours) that take off every 10 minutes from 4am to 8pm.
If traveling to Panama, you will have to pay US$5 for a tourist card. For further details see boxed text.
Guabito–Sixaola
Situated on the Caribbean coast, this is a fairly tranquil and hassle-free border crossing. Immigration guards regularly take off for lunch and you may have to wait a while to be processed. The border town on the Panamanian side is Guabito.
CLIMATE CHANGE & TRAVEL
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Flying & Climate Change
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The border is open from 8am to 6pm in Panama and from 7am to 5pm in Costa Rica. (Panama is one hour ahead.) Both sides close for an hour-long lunch at around 1pm, which means that there are potentially two hours each day when you’ll be unable to make it across the border quickly. Get to Sixaola as early as possible; while there are a couple of sleeping options, it won’t be the highlight of your trip if you have to spend the night. Before crossing the bridge, stop at the Costa Rica migración (2754-2044) to process your paperwork. Walking across the bridge is kind of fun, in a vertigo-inducing sort of way.
If you are coming from Bocas del Toro, it’s faster and cheaper to take the ferry to Changuinola (US$5 to US$7, 45 minutes), from where you can take a quick taxi to the border or to the bus station (US$5). One daily bus travels between Changuinola and San José at 10am (US$15, eight hours). Otherwise, you can walk over the border and catch one of the hourly buses that go up the coast from Sixaola. For details, see boxed text.
Río Sereno–San Vito
This is a rarely used crossing in the Cordillera de Talamanca. The border is open from 8am to 6pm in Panama and from 7am to 5pm in Costa Rica. The small village of Río Sereno on the Panamanian side has a hotel and a place to eat; there are no facilities on the Costa Rican side.
Regular buses depart Concepción and David in Panama for Río Sereno. Local buses (four daily) and taxis go from the border to San Vito. See also boxed text.
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Bus
A lot of travelers, particularly shoestringers, enter the country by bus. Furthermore, an extensive bus system